FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. How do I turn off the AOL Compression feature?

A. See our INSTRUCTIONS section.

Q. Why do my images look more blurry on AOL's Browser and why do some have black bars on them!

A. America Online utilizes graphics compression software that speeds up the delivery of web pages to it's members by compressing images and various multimedia applications. Images that are BMP, GIF or JPG are converted into the proprietary Johnson-Grace image format .ART. All AOL members have the option of deselecting "Used Compressed Graphics" in their Web Preferences.

Recent versions of some of the popular Image processing software such as Photoshop 4 - 5 put additional information in the image headers. The Johnson-Grace compression software interprets this addition information and attempts to compress it, resulting in black areas on the image. This can be rectified by using Photoshop 3.0 to save JPG's.
Also, saving JPG's and GIF's without "Thumbnails" in the newer versions of Photoshop will optimize your images for AOL's browser as explained in detail in the Graphics Compression area of Webmaster Info.

Q. OK, I have deselected "Use Compressed Graphics" in my WWW preferences and the images still look the same! What am I doing wrong?

A. This is a Caching issue. In your WWW preferences you can set your history to "0" pages and clear the History. You must also delete the files in your Temporary Internet Files folder.
Holding down the "Control" key on your keyboard and simultaneously mouse-clicking on the Browser Reload icon while the browser window is active will also clear your proxy cache and display the latest data from the website.

Q. When I create a large JPG as a background, it displays as tiled in the AOL browser, why is that? What can I do to display a large graphic background?

A. JPG's that are wider than 640 pixels are scaled down as part of the compression algorithm set up by the Johnson-Grace compression software. A GIF, even though it's larger in size it can by used as a replacement for large background JPG's . Another resolution is saving the JPG as "Progressive 3-pass" which the current version of the Johnson-Grace software does not recognize.

Q. I am still getting old pages and I am certain that the site has been updated, how do I clear my BROWSER CACHE?
A. Even though AOL's Proxy cache is updated every 24 hours, a member can clear their Browser Cache and force the reload of a page. This is done by either reducing thier History to "0" and manually clearing all pages in history or by holding down the SHIFT key on their keyboard and mouse clicking on the AOL browser reload icon. The latter will completely clear all items in history.

INSTRUCTIONS

Option #1 (Turn off AOL's graphic compression)

1. Open America On-Line, and make sure that you are connected to the internet so you can test your settings later.

2. Open the AOL web-browser as if you were going to a website as usual.

3. Look at the top of your AOL browser window. You will find a set of option buttons. Among them are Back, Reload, Forward, etc. Click the "Prefs" (preferences) button.

4. A new window should open with different tab options. The last one should contain graphic compression options. If the box next to "Used compressed graphics" is clicked, unclick it to turn off compression. Once this is done Click 'OK'. AOl 4.0 users have a 0-100 compression option. Slide the bar down to 0 and then click 'OK' in the bottom, right corner.

5.Compression should now be turned off. Another problem with the AOL browser is that it will not reload the graphics on a page once you have visited it with comressed mode on. Once you have viewed an image incompresed mode, it is stuck on your hard disk until you "clear the cache". To clear the cache, go back to your "prefs" window and select the advanced tab, and then select "purge cache". AOL 4.0 users may have a empty or clear cahce option.

Option #2 (Use a better, 3rd party, browser)

America On-Line has improved their browser's capabilities in version 4.0, however many of the same problems that have made previous versions of AOL so infamous, are still intact. Jpeg Compression, limited features, compatibility problems, etc.

The best remedy to 95% of these issues is to upgrade to a version of AOL with winsock capabilities (aol 3.0 for win95, or AOL 4.0) and get a 3rd party browser like netscape 4.0-4.5 or Internet Explorer 4.1-5.0. With these versions of AOL, you can download the latest Netscape or Internet Explorer versions (free), and eliminate most if not all of these problems.

Once the new browser is installed, run AOL, minimize it, and open your 3rd party browser. With the exception of a few more features and more efficient loading, it functions similar to AOL's browser.

Now you will be able to view images the way they were meant to be seen. Use more convenient bookmark systems. Also, when a 3rd party program uses AOL's connection, it keeps it "active" which will eliminate the "idle" messages that AOL constantly displays.

Download the latest browser versions here, free:

AOL 4.0 - http://www.newaol.com/freeaol/99639/adc.html
NETSCAPE - http://www.netscape.com/download/index.html?cp=hom05wbro
MSIE (win) - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.htm
MSIE (mac) - http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ie/

FACTS ABOUT AOL

Coming Soon...

LINKS TO RELEVANT AOL ISSUES

3D Photography (source)- http://www.3ge.com/~photo3d/stereo/text/aol_users/aol_disclaimer.html
Misc. AOL Isuues (source)- http://webmaster.info.aol.com

CREDITS

3D Photography, Webmaster Guide at aol.com, Marathon Press, Inc.